Barcelona has remained true to her traditions. She is still, as of old, a city of merchant princes, a hive of industry, at once the Liverpool and Manchester of Spain. To those who visit the capital of Catalonia after an acquaintance only with the moribund cities of Old Castile, this vision of España Moderna comes as a shock and a revelation. The first impression is not pleasing. You approach the city through a vast wilderness of suburbs, teeming with life, and breathing apparently through grimy factory chimneys. We realise that we have returned to the civilised twentieth century. But the brighter side of modernity is soon revealed. In its heart Barcelona is clean, bright, and spacious. The boulevards are unequalled in Europe--except perhaps by Budapest--and the street prospects are worthy of Washington. The Rambla is the most delightful of promenades; in the Calle Fernando the contents of every shop window tempt the unthrifty. A noble, beautiful modern metropolis, still worthy of Cervantes’ encomium: “Flor de las bellas ciudades del mundo, honra de España, reglo y delicia de sus moradores, y satisfacción de todo aquello que de una grande famosa, rica, y bien fundada ciudad, puede pedir un discreto y curioso deseo.” Barcelona is richer in monuments of the past than many a more ancient-looking city. Foremost among these is the Cathedral in the very heart of the town, one of the grandest examples of Gothic architecture in Spain. Its extreme sombreness and apparently massive character produce a similar impression to that created by the much larger Cathedral of Seville. Street thinks very highly of this church, and remarks on the skill with which the architect has contrived to make it appear much larger than it really is. He observes “the architecture of Cataluña had many peculiarities, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when most of the great buildings of Barcelona were being erected, they were so marked as to justify me, I think, in calling the style as exclusively national or provincial, as ... was our own Norfolk middle-pointed.... Besides this, there was one great problem which I may venture to say that the Catalan architects satisfactorily solved, the erection of churches of enormous and almost unequalled internal width.” The primitive Cathedral was built by Count Ramón Berenguer between 1046 and 1058, and considerably enlarged in the year 1173. The building, not yet satisfying the needs of the thriving city, was entirely rebuilt at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The design is attributed by Street to Jaime Fabre, a native of Majorca, who was succeeded as master of the works in 1388 by Master Roque. The last stone of the vault was placed on September 26, 1448.